“Pleasure
and Melancholy, Lyrical Beauty and Desolation, are thus uniquely
aligned in true English synthesis” (Peter Ackroyd: Albion
– the origins of the English imagination, Vintage 2004,
p.445). One could scarcely ask for a more representative selection
of the essence of true Englishry in song and poetry than this
disc, beautifully sung by Nathan Vale, a tenor of expressive
range, accompanied by Paul Plummer.

Gurney,
Ireland and Finzi all have their prescribed places in the literature
of English music – and it greatly delights me, in view of what
I know of, and have written of the music of Ian Venables that
he should here take his place in this hierarchy of English song
. The overall connection I think, is as much literary as musical.
It is the poet who has been given voice here – the voice of
love in its many aspects, a central theme that in its unity
yet encompasses an astonishing variety of mood. This ranges
from the quietly ecstatic “cosily bowered” of Ireland’s “The
Trellis” to Blunden’s dead child “alone on that most wintry
wild”; from the Uricon of Shrewsbury and the playing fields
of Shropshire to the mirroring waters of the Venetian canals
…

The
recital opens with a wonderfully powerful setting by Gurney
of “On Wenlock Edge” - a far cry from the atmospheric intensity
of Vaughan Williams - sharing with John Ireland the love “of
primal things”. This is not the music of folksong. Even Ireland’s
“Three Ravens” is far more sophisticated than the rural Butterworth,
or the deft handling of Britten. This is a probing to the deep
wellsprings of cultural heritage which holds both darkness and
light. Even the Venetian songs of Ian Venables - taking for
text that little known and seldom set 19th century
apostle of male beauty and platonic love, John Addington Symonds
- are as English as The Yellow Book and the Grand Tour
– truly “Only the Wanderer knows England’s Graces”. Such eclecticism
is in itself an English trait.

Perhaps
the most shadowy figure on the disc is that of Gerald Finzi,
his “O Fair to See” a posthumous ‘anthology’ (not a cycle) which
encompasses visionary moments of reflection. Yet in “Since We
Loved” it also touches those particular cadences - à la Quilter
- of the drawing room.

Seldom
is much notice taken of the art work – and in this case it seems
to me that the cover illustration is worthy of mention as being
particularly well chosen.

The unity of the whole conception is further
underlined by some curious internal associations - the whole quite
ravishingly beautiful.

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